VideoView -- UPI Arts & Entertainment

"Jeepers Creepers" -- A stylish but grisly chiller-thriller in which two college students on spring break find sheer terror on a lonely country road. Darry (Justin Long) and Trish (Gina Phillips), brother and sister, decide to take the long way home when they are almost run off the highway by a wildly careening rusty old van that comes out of nowhere and then after a few moments roars out of sight. But as they pass a boarded up church in the isolated rural area they see the van again and this time someone (or something)in black seems to be dumping a body down a large pipe jutting from the ground. They're spotted, triggering a second, more dangerous encounter but they escape again and this time Darry insists on going back to see what's in the pipe. Bad idea, but people in horror movies are always doing dumb things. Writer-director Victor Salva keeps the suspense in high gear through the first half before it shifts down a bit. 2001. 90 minutes. MGM Home Entertainment. Rated R (terror, violence, gore, language, brief nudity).

"The Man Who Cried" -- A young Jewish girl searches for her father in a 20-year odyssey that carries her from bleak Russian poverty to shiny Hollywood movie studios in Sally Potter's lyrical, visually arresting film. The year is 1927 and little Fegele has been separated from her beloved father who has left the Soviet Union for America to make his fortune. Before long, she's on the road, too, sent by her beleaguered family to a foster home in England where she's renamed Suzi and, as a teenager Christina Ricca)lands a dancing job in Paris. Hiding her heritage as war grows closer, Suzi hobnobs with a gold-digging chorus girl (Cate Blanchett), a famous opera singer (John Turturro) and a gypsy horseman (Johnny Depp), with whom she falls in love.

Watching the movie requires patience for it moves slowly, relying heavily on images over dialogue to tell its story, with long, lingering shots of Ricci's elfin facial features and Depp's brooding countenance. The viewer may have trouble connecting emotionally with the characters but certainly has something good to look at. 2000. 97 minutes. Universal Studios Home Video. Rated R (sexuality).

"The Glass House" -- Ruby (LeeLee Sobielski) is a lively, somewhat rebellious 15-year-old whose carefree life is suddenly turned upside down when her parents are killed in a car crash. That leaves Ruby and her 10-year-old brother Rhett (Trevor Morgan) wealthy orphans in the custody of their former neighbors, Terry and Ellen Glass (Stellan Skarsgaard and Diane Lane), who sweep them away in their limo to their secluded, gated and very impressive oceanfront Malibu mansion. But the kids' initial reaction to their new surroundings gives way soon to a feeling of foreboding and fear, a scary scenario that grows rather gruesome toward the end. 2001. 106 minutes. Columbia TriStar Home Video. Rated PG-13 (sinister thematic elements, violence, drug content, language).

"Mad Max," the bristling, high-speed 1979 post-apocalyptic thriller from Australia that made a star of 20-year-old Mel Gibson, has reappeared on DVD. Gibson plays a cop in the near future fighting frantically against vicious motorcycle gangs that have taken over the countryside after one gang killed his family. The original Australian soundtrack has been reinstated -- the dialogue had been dubbed when the film was released in this country in 1980, so some actors may be difficult to understand. Included is a documentary on Gibson's rise to fame and another showing how the wild action stunts were pulled off...

For fans of one of the finest American films ever made, "To Kill A Mockingbird" is back in a collector's edition on DVD... Robert Altman's groundbreaking, irreverent comedy "MASH" is making its debut on DVD in a two-disc set that includes hours of extras. Also, out is the first season of the "MASH" TV series...

Variety says that while holiday retail sales were off overall, home entertainment products, led by DVD players, were up throughout the country. The International Council of Shopping Centers cited a "strong home and family theme" in America as a major reason...

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